Saturday, May 7, 2011

Leading for nearly the entire 3.1 miles, Stephen Robbins won the seventh annual Marzuq Shriners' Mother's Day 5K road race in Maclay Gardens State Park on Saturday morning, 7 May 2011. The Cairo, Georgia runner covered the course in 18:33, well ahead of the 18:55 posted by runner-up and top master Mickey Moore, the defending champion. Tallahassee's Micah Adriani took the women's title, finishing fifth overall in 20:36.

Robbins led the field of nearly 200 runners out of the Lake Hall recreation area, the site of the start of the race. By the end of the first kilometer Robbins was thirty meters ahead, with Mike LaBossiere, Mickey Moore, Michael Kennett, and James Taylor leading his pursuers. During the second kilometer Robbins continued to set the pace, while Taylor dropped out of the chase. The race left the pavement for the Lake Overstreet Trails, and by the end of the third kilometer Moore had gotten away from Kennett and LaBossiere. Robbins was still leading, but Moore was closing. With a kilometer to go, Robbins' margin was down to twenty meters. But that was as close as Moore would get; Robbins ran away in the closing stages of the race and crossed the finish line nearly a hundred meters ahead of Moore. Kennett was another hundred meters back in third at 19:23, while LaBossiere was fourth overall and the second master runner at 20:15.

Micah Adriani and Claire Fruchtnicht staked out the first and second positions in the women's competition early in the race, ultimately finishing in those spots with a 20:36 and a 21:39. Katie Howard fought past defending champion Fran McLean in the late stages of the race to place third among the women in 23:20. 30 meters back in 23:29, McLean was the fourth woman and the first woman master.